A Boy Went Up A Hill or Ranma and Akane's Exce- Great Adventure
by Lost Fanfiction
Summary: After Genma's death, Ranma and Akane leave to search for a cure. Everybody else leaves in search of Ranma. (By Ronny Hedin. Story published here because all websites it is on have vanished.)
1. Japan

This story was written by Ronny Hedin. I am posting it because there is no other easily available website that this story can be read on. If the author of this story wishes to talk to me about the posting of it, contact me using the email in my profile.

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><p>A Boy Went Up A Hill<p>

or

Akane and Ranma's Excellent^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HGreat Adventure

A Ranma 1/2 fanfic, by Ronny Hedin

Chapter 1: Japan

From where he stood atop the hill, Ranma could look down and see Tokyo spread itself out in front of him. Tall houses reached for the sky, begging to be let in; in other parts of the city, the low buildings stuck to the ground as if they were afraid to be torn loose by some heavenly force. People scurried about, like millions and millions of tiny ants, and there were cars, every one of them adding its little amount to the ever-growing dark cloud that obscured the city more and more from view.

He smiled wistfully. The boy had spent most of his life travelling the world, never stopping in one place for long. Every week had meant new sights to take in, new environments to adapt to. This city, though, had been his home for almost a year now, and in a way, Ranma's feet itched to feel roads below them, part of him eager to return to simple life he'd used to live.

To think, he'd expected he'd be settling down for a peaceful life when they first came to Tokyo! Ranma laughed; a playful, happy laugh, not one tainted by sarcasm or spite, as had become all too usual recently.

Akane took the last few steps to bring her all the way up to the top, dragging an enourmous backpack behind her with considerable difficulty. Finally there, she panted exhaustedly, placing her hands on her knees and bending over slightly as she glared up at her fiance. "And what are *you* laughing at?" she wheezed.

"Why, you, of course." Ranma flashed her a mischievous grin. "We've just begun and you're already close to giving up."

"Hmph." Somehow finding the energy to stand, she glared at him. "*You* try climbing up here with that thing!" To drive the point home, she summoned her last powers to heft the grossly overloaded backpack into her arms, and with a burst of superhuman strength, threw it at him.

"What, this?" Ranma caught it effortlessly. "Told ya not to bring all that crap." Showing his own, significantly smaller, pack for comparison, he balanced Akane's in his outstretched right palm, as if to mock her.

Heck, he *meant* to mock her; at least that's what she decided, and the girl threw herself at him head first, sending the pair tumbling down the other side of the hill.

The descent was every bit as long as the ascent, but proved to last for only a fraction of the time, as they soon landed in a big, thouroughly bruised heap, a now unrecognizable bush thankfully cushioning the impact slightly.

"Well, that's *one* way of getting down," Ranma observed weakly, trying to disentangle himself enough to stand up.

And then the backpack completed its journey down the hillside, landing on his head.

* * *

><p>When Nodoka came to the Tendou home to announce her decision, she found a distinct lack of Ranmas there. On the other hand, the house had an overabundance of crying Souuns; as was often his habit, recently even more than before, the Tendou father sat unmoving at the table, hands over his face in a vain attempt to stop the neverending river of tears.<p>

"Wha- What's the matter?" Nodoka asked, briefly shocked, if nothing else than at the lack of care the two Tendo sisters present showed; the Saotome mother herself had not been around him long enough to know that this sort of behavior was to be expected.

"They're gone!" Souun bawled. "Ranma left with my poor baby girl!"

The mother bent down to his level, reaching out her hand to his shoulder in an attempt to calm him down. "It's okay," she tried to comfort him. "They're still alive. They'll be back." Yet she could not keep a few tears from gathering at the edge of her eye. Of course, she was a woman; she could allow herself to cry, and a voice in the back of her head insisted she reprimand Souun.

"Ranma and Akane!" the Tendou father ranted on. "They eloped together! I'm so happy!"

Nodoka fell backwards.

"Oh, I'm so happy," he cried, his sobbing if possible increasing in volume as tears of joy streamed down his cheeks. "If only Saotome was alive to see this..."

And as soon as that thought passed through his mind, the cries changed their nature. "My old friend is dead!"

Kasumi bent down to help the collapsed Nodoka to her feet again. "I'm sorry," she said. "He's been like that ever since he found the letter."

The Saotome mother was about to speak, but the other sister, sharp as ever, predicted her question and held out a short note, hastily written on a scrap of paper.

"Left with Ranma," it stated. "Don't know when we'll be back. Akane." Not much for the Tendou father to base his claims on, but then, he'd always been known to overreact.

For most of Ranma's friends (and/or enemies, a distinction not always so easy to make), "tact" simply meant entering through the door, rather than, say, a window, or even a wall, and so, it came as no great surprise to anybody when Ryouga chose this moment to come barging in, screaming furiously. "RANMA! WHERE ARE YOU!"

Souun looked up at him briefly, a wide grin on his lips, and stopped his crying for a brief moment, tears still travelling in rivers down his face. "He's with Akane."

The boy's eyes narrowed as he took a firm hold of the man's shoulders, shaking him desperately.

"The-ey e-elo-oped to-ge-gether..." the tall man stuttered, the rough treatment making him a bit momentarily confused.

It took a few seconds for the words to register in the young man's mind, but when they did, he rose to his full height, shaking a hand furiously in front of him, vainly try to get a grip on his feelings. "Ranma..." he hissed under his breath. "How dare you..." Not a moment to lose, especially with his sense of direction, he walked determinedly towards the door.

Or though he did, anyway; actually, he had set foot for a window, but when he opened it, his intention to leave became quite obvious, and Kasumi cast an anxious glance down at the tray she held. "Excuse me," she said meekly, "wouldn't you like to stay for tea?"

"No time," the boy spoke, shaking with anger. "I have to find Ranma!"

The middle-aged woman rose, surprising him, and grabbed a katana she had placed on the table in front of her. "I'll be coming with you, young man," Nodoka stated determinedly.

* * *

><p>Striding confidently forward, arrogance evident in her steps, Kodachi approached the two girls already standing outside the Tendou home, a brief snort startling them from the violent argument they had been in the middle of.<p>

Waiting until just before they were about to interrupt her, she spoke, her voice condescending as always. "Can either of you peasants tell me where to find my darling Ranma?"

Ukyou frowned at her, the situation at hand more important to her than the insult. "That's what we were discussing, hon."

"Violent girl steal husband away!" Shampoo piped in, terribly upset.

"What?" Instinctively, Kodachi grasped for her weapons. "What is this you are saying? Tell me more!"

"Mr. Tendo claims they eloped together." Ukyou snorted. "Of course, Ranma would never leave willingly with her, so she must somehow have kidnapped him."

"No time for talk," Shampoo exclaimed. "Must go rescue husband before too late!"

Kodachi nodded determinedly. "I believe this calls for a truce."

Ukyou stared off towards the horizon as if somehow being able to see her beloved Ranma there in the distance. "I'm with you," she said, her voice as sharp as steel.

* * *

><p>"Rrranmaaa!"<p>

Driving the last tent-pin into the ground, the boy looked up, sensing something dangerous in her voice. "Yeah?"

"Where am *I* going to sleep?" She held her hands firmly latched to her waists.

Ranma briefly turned to look at what he'd been busy with the last fifteen minutes. "This is a two-person tent," he explained wearily. "I can even fetch some cold water if you're so worried about sleeping close to a 'pervert like me'." He distorted his voice for the last part, succeeding only in angering her further.

"What, you expect me to sleep right on the ground!?"

Exasperated, Ranma took his head into his hands. "All that stuff and no sleeping bag ... by the way," he looked up, slightly confused, "where did you put that pack, anyway?"

"Well..." Akane scratched the back of her head, slightly embarrassed. "I threw it away two hours ago, since it was so heavy." Her features regained their anger as her voice rose to a shout again."It's all your fault, anyway - you're the one who told me not to bring all that stuff!"

Ranma dropped to the ground, face first. "Take mine," he volunteered. "*I*'ll sleep on the ground."

Akane snorted. "Don't trouble yourself," she growled. "I can handle sleeping on the ground just as well as you can, Mr. Big-camping-expert."

Ranma, as could be expected, rose to the challenge. "No way! You take the sleeping bag!" He pushed it off towards her.

"Are you saying I'm too weak?" The girl's fury rose. "I'll sleep on the ground, and that's final."

The boy crossed his arms resolutely. "Well, I sure as hell ain't gonna use no wimpy sleeping bag, so you'd better take it."

In the end, they both woke up rather stiff the next morning.

* * *

><p>With a cough, Ryouga drew the attention of the three thugs sitting on the sidewalk, and one of them looked up from the card-game, brushing his long, unruly fringe hair aside to give the boy an appraising look.<p>

"Watcha' want, kid?" he snarled.

Arms folded across his chest, Ryouga ignored the man's threatening tone. "Either of you seen a boy by the name of Saotome Ranma pass by?"

One of the other men snorted. "How are we supposed to know the names of everyone passing by, boy?" he asked through a thick beard.

Temporarily shaken out of his tough posture, Ryouga scratched the  
>back of his head embarrassedly. "Well... Have you seen a boy about my age, pigtail, probably dressed in a red and black chinese outfit?" For a moment, his eyes seemed to drift into his skull, but he quickly snapped out of it, instead curling his lips into an angry snarl as he0 shook his fists. "He must have been dragging a poor girl along, too, cute, short hair..."<p>

The third man laughed briefly, throwing down his cards in disgust while he answered. "Yeah, we saw him, though the girl didn't seem all that reluctant to me. They went north with some truck, I think."

Bowing briefly in gratitude, Ryouga returned to the opposite side of the road where Nodoka waited - no small feat, for him.

"Did they see him?" the mother asked, hopeful.

The boy nodded, pointing. "They went that way."

And so, the pair set off southwards.

* * *

><p>The small, aged truck shook and vibrated almost dangerously as it travelled down the dusty road at a speed possibly somewhat higher than what would have been suitable, and the young pair sitting in the back could feel every single bump, the boy's pigtail fluttering like a pennant in the wind.<p>

Brushing a few stray locks of hair out of her face and adjusting her position in a vain attempt to find a more comfortable way to sit, the girl looked up at him. "Do you really think you'll find a cure?" she asked in a tone both suspicious and curious. "There's been plenty of them this past year, and none have worked..."

"Well..." Ranma shrugged. "Y'know," he said, his fingers idly playing with his pigtail, the other hand resting on his knee, "I've never really been *looking* for a cure before - just waiting for 'em to come to me. Since nothing worthwhile's come along, I figured maybe it's time to go search myself."

"Oh." Akane nodded. "I guess that makes sense," she mumbled, although it was clear from her tone she hadn't quite been convinced.

* * *

><p>Ranma smiled as the truck sped off into the distance. "We gained a lot of time on that ride, but I'm still glad it's over." He shook his head disapprovingly as he watched the small red spot, already a fair way off, make a reckless turn without bothering to slow down the slightest.<p>

"Uh-huh," the girl grunted in agreement, dusting her dress off with a slight frown. "That guy was..."

What she thought of the driver, however, will never been known, as an enourmous pig came rushing out of the edge of the nearby forest at breakneck speed, crashing into Akane and throwing her several feet away.

The hippopotamus-sized monstrousity pushed its thick paws into the ground, sliding sharply to a halt, and turned around to eye the pair, frothing.

Though Ranma had been taken just as much by surprise as Akane had, he soon regained his senses, and rushed to her aid, placing himself between girl and pig to give her time to stand. "Back off!" he snarled angrily to the beast.

Even if said beast had been able to understand him, it would probably have disregarded the command. A moot point, at any rate, as it was indeed not able to, and it threw itself at the boy without much pause.

Pushing the girl with him, Ranma easily stepped aside the clumsy attack, and he took Akane up into his arms as he leapt above the next above, landing with his feet impacting the pig's head.

Mostly used to people running screaming in terror, the beast was not quite sure how to respond to getting beaten upon, but fortunately, while the pig tried to figure out just what the heck was going on, Ranma saved it from further worries as he jumped off and gave its snout a solid kick, sending the enormous beast crashing senseless to the ground, its weight almost making the landscape shake.

Setting the girl down on the ground again, Ranma made a show out of brushing the dust from his clothing. "You OK?" he asked her.

The dangerous situation now past, she snorted derisively. "I can take care of myself," she told him irritatedly.

Ranma harrumphed and set off walking again. "Geeze, could've said thanks," he muttered.

A second shadow still lurked in the trees, watching him with big eyes. "Wow," it whispered under its breath, impressed by the ease with which the boy had defeated her pet.

* * *

><p>Ryouga smiled happily towards the old men. "Ranma's been here? You sure, Ranma Saotome?"<p>

The bearded, grey-haired oldtimer sighed and shook his head. "Look, just because I'm old I don't have to be senile."

"And even if he was," his friend piped in, waving his stick madly in the air, "there's no way he'd forget the name, considering how the boy was sprouting it around all the time, almost like he was desperate for us to remember it."

"Uh, sure," the boy hastily defended, trying to avoid getting hit. "Any idea where he went?" Inwardly, he cackled. _Ranma, I have you now!_

The old man nodded. "Don't know where he was going after that, but he headed of on the road towards Manukemura. Not too long ago, so you'd probably be able to catch him, if you hurry." Seeing the blank look on the boy's face, he added, pointing. "Oh, that's a small village, off that way."

"Thanks a lot!" Ryouga said, bowing respectfully, and headed off...

...until Nodoka caught him by the arm, coughing gently. "Excuse me, Ryouga, but you're going the wrong way."

He scratched the back of his head, embarrassed. "Uh, right."

The mother sighed gently to herself. If they really had found Ranma now, that had to be a lucky stroke of fate; the boy must've led them hopelessly off course before she realized how bad his sense of direction was. Actually, she'd probably get along faster without having to correct *him* all the time, but at least the boy seemed pretty strong and manly except for that, and in these unfriendly, modern times, a poor, defenseless woman couldn't travel by herself, could she?

Admittedly, she wasn't quite as defenseless as she might have seemed at the first glance, but hey, bringing a man along for protection was the traditional thing to do, and she wasn't the sort of woman to ignore traditions, no matter how unfounded they might seem.

* * *

><p>"Well," Nodoka said, "this seems to be it. Manukemura."<p>

The boy stared big-eyed at the small village; little more than a few houses at the side of the road. "Wow, how'd you know?"

As so often lately, the mother sighed, pointing. "It says so on the sign over there."

"Oh, I see." Ryouga nodded understandingly, looking in the opposite direction.

"Anyway," she continued, dragging him along by the arm - gently and demurely yet with great force and determination - "let's ask the young man over here if he's seen Ranma."

The young man over there was a quite a fine specimen, tall and athletic, a somewhat militaristic air over him - due in no small part to the camouflage trousers he wore. He turned to look at the pair as they approached him, smiling ever so slightly. "Yes?"

Nodoka curtsied politely. "Excuse me, young man, but have you by chance met a boy by the name of Ranma Saotome recently? He must've passed through the village recently." She reached into her bag. "I think I might have a picture here somewhere..."

The young man's smile widened. Finally, the scheme had paid off. "Oh, no need to look for that picture. *I*'m Ranma."

Ryouga looked at him incredulously, rage slowly forming on his face. "Ranma? What've you done with Akane? And where'd you learn to disguise yourself so well?"

Ryuu Kumon sweated heavily.

Nodoka sighed, bopping her travel companion on the head with the hilt of her katana. "I think I'd recognize my own son. Now, young man, do you have any idea where I might find the *real* Ranma?" She allowed a menacing edge to creep into her voice. Perhaps, a week ago, the young man might have fooled her, but at the funeral, she had made sure to eye her son carefully.

"Bu, but," he protested vainly, "I *am* the real Ranma..."

He trailed off as the woman looked into his eyes, and in the short instant he peered into those steel-sharp pools, he realized that this was a woman to fear, despite her apparent innocence. The young man let his shoulders fall to his sides. "I have no idea."

Nodoka smiled warmly at him. "There, now that wasn't so hard, was it? Come on, Ryouga, let's go."

Inside, she sighed wearily. Now they had probably been wasting precious time following a false lead, and still had no clues as to where Ranma had gone - except that it was probably pretty far from here.

* * *

><p>The old, balding man smiled warmly at the pair as he followed them to one of the shelves, holding up an oil lamp to shed some light in the small, crowded room. "Why, a curse? Yes, indeed, as you can see, we have many items here at the Sunset Shrine, all with true magic capabilities, and many of them able to cure various afflictions." He took a small, wooden statue from a shelf. "Take, for example this statue, carved by an early Buddhist monk many centuries ago. As you can see, it resembles the head of a young man, his eyes closed, and though originally, that is all it was, it was later imbued with the capability to cure blindness when the great lord Kogou of Korou, who had once..."<p>

Ranma coughed pointedly. "Sure, gramps, we believe you." Akane was about to protest, but he silenced her with a firm stare.

"Ah, yes." The old man nodded. "So what sort of curse it is you seek to rid yourself of?"

"I'll demonstrate." The boy produced a bucket of water, and promptly poured it over his head, causing him to suddenly turn into a somewhat shorter - and significantly more big-chested - girl.

This, in turn, caused the old man to gasp, let his eyes roll back into their sockets, and fall unconscious to the ground.

"You know," Ranma said dryly, "I'm beginning to suspect these guys are all fake."

* * *

><p>"Umm, Mrs. Saotome?" Ryouga communicated as well as he could through the heap of bags he carried in his arms.<p>

"Yes?" she answered in front of him, making sure to keep physical contact with his arm so he wouldn't get lost on the way to their rooms.

"Why do you always carry that katana around? I've never seen you use it..." Trailing off to realize what he'd just said, he added, just to be on the safe side, "not that I've been around you all that much of course."

"This?" She lifted it slightly, not that there was much chance of the boy seeing it through the bags. "Oh, it's a family heirloom."

"Yes," he nodded, almost tipping the bags over in the process, "I understand that, but couldn't you just leave it at home?"

"It has certain magical capabilities, so I dare not let it out of my sight."

"Magic capabilities?" That roused the boy's curiousity. "What are those?"

"Oh, I could tell you," she said, drawing just an inch of the katana out of the scabbard to let the hallway lights bounce off the well-polished blade, "but then I'd have to kill you. Family secret, you see."

Ryouga gulped audibly, smiling desperately "Uh, now that I think of it, I don't really wanna know."

* * *

><p>Akane sighed. "I don't think we're ever going to find a cure."<p>

Ranma nodded. "Not around here. But then, I never expected..."

He never got around to tell her what he didn't expect, as at the moment, some sort of small creature, the approximate size of an average dog, crashed into him from behind, throwing the surprised boy to the ground. Less than an instant later, the thing jumped away again, bouncing off into the distance too fast for either of them to tell just what it was.

They didn't have to wait long to find out, however. The boy had barely had time to get to his feet when, from around the same corner, appeared a very large and very noise group of very angry women. Most of these were waving around various kitchen implements in a highly threatening manner, and all of them were shouting "PERVERT!" or "PANTY-THIEF", not to mention a lot of words not suitable for print.

The two teenagers both sighed.

"Happosai?" Akane gritted.

Ranma shook his head angrily. "Can't I get away from that old creep *anywhere*?" He grabbed her hand and jumped up a nearby roof, trying to follow the women - not a very difficult pursuit, especially as the group grew steadily in size.

"WHAT?" the girl cried out, surprised that they followed the pervert. "You actually *want* to meet that old freak?"

The boy shrugged, as well as he could shrug while jumping from rooftop to rooftop while dragging his fiancee along. "As old as he is, he could know of some kinda' cure. Might as well try..."

Of course, as past experience with the perverted master's exploits had often proven, the group of women were bound not to catch up to him; though many, they simply lacked enough mobility and training.

Ranma and Akane, however, did not, and they caught up with Happosai in a dark, run-down alley.

Showing no signs of fear, the aged master leered at them. "Why, both Ranma and Akane, alone in a dark alley..." He trailed off, his mind perhaps occupied with thoughts of the possibilities this brought, but neither of the teenagers had any doubts as to what he meant.

The boy snorted. "Dream on, old man. Now, tell me, do you know of some sorta' cure for this curse of mine?"

"A cure?" The old man grinned. "Why, I don't know of any cure - If I did, I would've have told you by now!"

Ranma crackled his knuckles. "Listen, ya old freak, if you don't know something, we're gonna have to go to China, and I really don't want to."

A look of panic passed over Happosai's face, very briefly, and as it was over in little more than an instant, the boy was not sure if it had really been there or was just a figment of his own imagination - he was sure his threats wouldn't be enough to scare the perverted old freak, at least not visibly. At any rate, after thinking for a few seconds, said freak spoke again, now chuckling quietly to himself. "I might know of something." He stopped to think for a few seconds more, then spoke again just before Ranma grew impatient enough to interrupt him. "Oh, yes I might." The old pervert seemed very amused by now. "Before I tell you, though, you'll have to do a little task for me. "

Ranma growled, but didn't complain. "This better be worth it, old man."

"I need to think about it over the night." The lech grinned.  
>"Meanwhile, I want you to..."<p>

* * *

><p>Ranma opened the drawer ever so slowly, carefully and not without a hint of dread. If his poor mother knew what he was doing... he shuddered at the thought, knowing that he'd probably have a close encounter with a sharp katana if such was the case.<p>

Scanning the contents, his eyes long since accustomed to the dark, he soon found what he sought - or rather, what the self-appointed "master" sought - and with shaking hands, he retrieved the white, silken panties, soundlessly putting them among the many pairs already in the bag as he slowly tip-toed out of the room again, careful lest he make any noise.

"One pair from every woman in the hotel," the old pervert had said. Well, unless Ranma had missed any - he desperately hoped he hadn't - this was the last room, and with trembling hands, he gently pushed the door open.

Inside, two figures snored away; a man and a woman, judging by the silhouettes. Oddly, they kept their beds apart.

The boy didn't really care just *how* they slept, though, as long as they just seemed likely to continue doing so for the duration of his visit. As he tip-toed inside, his eyes warily darting back and forth, he couldn't help but feel there was something familiar about the couple. Well, he didn't really feel like going for a closer look, so he quickly found what he needed, and turned to leave, barely able to stop himself from breathing a sigh of relief...

...a bit too early, it turned out. Glad to be finished with the dirty job, he carelessly overlooked a small bag that someone had tossed on the floor, and he stumbled on it, the thud when he hit the ground breaking the silence sharply enough to wake the entire hotel; at least in Ranma's imagination.

While he didn't make quite that much noise, it sufficed to wake both occupants of the room, and the man, or boy, as it turned out, mumbled a few sleepy words of confusion. "Uh, uhm... what?"

A familiar voice indeed, and Ranma wasted no time in leaving the scene of the crime, his heart deciding that his throat would make a terrific new residence.

But Ranma had lost quite a bit of time in scrambling to his feet again, and he barely got out of the before Ryouga was hot on his heels. It didn't take the other boy long to recognize the one he pursued, and soon, furious cries of "Ranma! You pervert!" resounded through the hotel as the pair passed down one corridor after another with ever-growing speed, muted noise slowly starting to drift out from more than one door as the loud hunt woke the occupants of the rooms.

They reached a stair, both of them taking it in a single leap, the chase continuing without pause on the floor below.

Finally, Ranma saw it; the exit, where he and Akane had planned a little distraction, just in case. _Now it'll work even better than planned,_ the pig-tailed martial artist had time to think as he desperately threw himself out through the glass door. Just as Ryouga, only a single pace behind, managed to grab his legs, a stream of water splashed over the pair, and the now-female Ranma scrambled to his feet, praying that his fiancee hadn't had time to see his pursuer.

Fortunately, she hadn't; as soon as the girl discarded the empty bucket, her eyes fell on the little black pig barely visible in the soft moonlight.

She didn't need more than a glance to recognize her beloved pet, though, and quickly scooped him into her arms. "P-chan!" she exclaimed, a mixture of happiness and worry in her voice as she scratched the animal behind its ears. "I'm glad to see you again, but this is *very* dangerous." She stressed the words carefully, finishing with a sigh. "You better go home again." Somewhat reluctantly, she put the pig down on the ground, ignoring its attempts to climb back into her lap.

Meanwhile, back in the room, Nodoka hugged her legs tiredly. "How strange," she said to herself, not without a touch of awe. "I dreamt Ranma was here, stealing my underwear." The woman let out a content sigh. "What a wonderful dream! I just hope he is as manly in reality, too..."

* * *

><p>As soon as Happosai saw Ranma carrying the bag, his mouth watered, and he stretched out his arms like a beggar eager for a few coins, the pervert's itching fingers clawing at the air. "Gimme gimme gimme!" he shouted exitedly.<p>

Ranma frowned. "Like I'd *want* to hang on to this." Head turned to the side, he held the simple sports bag and its ill-gotten contents at arms length, disgust evident in his voice.

The old master leapt for it, and brought the bag with him down to the ground, barely able to restrain himself enough to unzip it.

The boy coughed pointedly, lifting the old man to look into his eyes.

"Oh, yeah, right." Happosai smiled crookedly. "A cure? Well, I've been thinking about it all night..." He paused for effect, making Ranma grind his teeth in frustration until the lech finally decided to finish the sentence. "But I couldn't think of anything. Sorry." He smiled broadly, showing an impressive number of badly worn teeth.

Ranma failed to be amused. "Why you..." he hissed, smoke leaking through his ears as his blood came dangerously close to boiling.

"Hey!" Happosai frayed his arms wildly, taking the hint." Just kidding, just kidding! Actually, there's this fish..."

* * *

><p>They found the village about as sleepy as most of its size, but at least it hadn't been deserted. On a veranda next to the town square - if you could call it that - sat an old man in a rocking chair, gently snoring the day away. Obviously, the wisps of smoke floating up from the pipe he had stuck in his mouth didn't bother him as he rocked back and forth ever so slowly. The whole scene felt like an image of peace and tranquility.<p>

Until Ranma walked up to him. "Hey, gramps!" he shouted, scaring the oldtimer half to death. The boy waited impatiently, tapping his foot against the ground as the man tried to calm himself down and figure out what had happened. The pipe fell to the floor, ash spreading in a small circle around it.

Eventually, the old man came to his senses. "What's the matter, sonny?" he said, cupping a hand near his ear to aid his obviously impaired hearing.

"We're looking for..." Ranma began.

"What? Speak up, sonny, I can't hear you," the oldtimer interrupted him.

The boy sighed, increasing his volume. "We're looking for this fish..."

"Ah." The man nodded understandingly. "Yeah, the Akairo no Nishin. Only one place in the world where you can find it, and that's the lake just outside town, of in that direction." He pointed, chuckling to himself. "Don't know what a boy like you would want with it, though."

"None of your problem, gramps," Ranma snorted, waving his left hand in a vain attempt to fend off Akane.

"Mind your manners," the girl hissed down to him after pasting the pig-tailed martial artist to the ground with an impressive blow. She dusted off her clothes and turn to the man, smiling politely. "Anything else you can tell us?"

"Well..." The oldtimer scratched his long, grey beard thoughtfully. "Catching these fishes isn't as easy as it sounds. You see, when they want to, they can be very fast, and..."

* * *

><p>"Yeah, yeah, I heard him just as well as you did," Ranma muttered to calm his fiancee down, pulling at his makeshift fishing rod to test it for strength. "Fast, men only, no tools."<p>

"Well, then, why'd you make *that*?" she asked critically.

Ranma snorted. "He's just an old geezer. Now shut up and let me get this over with." Sitting down, he stretched the rod out to where he thought he'd seen a flash of red, trying to avoid the withering glare she gave him.

He didn't even have time to lower the hook before something really big landed just where Ranma had seen the fish, throwing a wide cascade of water all around, including at the boy, with predictable results.

When the commotion settled, it turned out that the object had in fact been a giant of a man, easily ten feet tall. The man, dressed only in a pair of enourmous blue swimming trunks, raised one of his muscular arms and smashed a big hand into the water frustratedly, once again splashing up an impressive amount of water. "Damn!" he muttered. "Almost had it."

The pig-tailed boy, now a very wet and very angry pig-tailed girl, growled at him. "Look what you did, you big clumsy idiot!"

"Hpmh." The man snorted, producing an almost scary sound from deep down his oversized throat. He brushed a hand through the stripy, wet bush of thick, black hair that clung to his head, making sure to clear it out of his eyes. "Sorry, girl, but I *got* to get one of those fishes, and they sure are slippery little bastards."

"Well, so do I," Ranma shouted furiously. "You've got the whole lake to play around in, so stay away form me! Is your head as thick on the inside as on the outside?"

Choosing not to answer, the giant turned his back to her, huffing indignantly as he waded out to deeper waters again.

Folding his arms, Ranma waited impatiently for the man to get far away enough, before he sat down again. "Heat me some water," he told his fiancee.

"Don't think you can order me around!" she sniffed, slightly insulted, but still brought out the cooking equipment, starting a small fire while her currently somewhat feminine fiance waited for the fish to bite.

* * *

><p>Four hours later, Ranma rose, stretching out his weary legs.<br>Obviously, this strategy didn't work, and it was only a slight consolation that they could still see the gigantic man vainly jumping for fishes off in the distance.

"That's what you get for being so stubborn," Akane admonished him sternly, arms folded across her chest. "Do you believe what the old man said now?"

Ranma nodded. "This ain't gonna be easy," he observed irritatedly. "Girls can't catch the fishes, and I can't get wet without turning into one."

She surprised him by turning soft for a few, short moments. "I... hope you can catch it, Ranma."

He smiled confidently at her. "I've never failed before, have I? Come on, we can use that rowing-boat over there."

Akane shifted nervously, looking in the direction he pointed. "That one? I'm not sure, it looks awfully unstable to me..."

Her fiance gave off a short laugh. "Still don't know how to swim, do ya?" He ignored the angry glare that followed. "Don't worry, I can handle it by myself, so just stay where you are, or go back to the village or something."

"Maybe I'll do just that!" she sniffed, turning to leave.

* * *

><p>Ranma had been rowing for a fair while when he finally spotted one of the fishes. _There!_ he thought to himself, grinning slightly as he rubbed his hands scaly red thing swam around almost mockingly close to the surface, promising an easy catch.<p>

Without much hesitation, the pig-tailed martial artist jumped out of the boat, diving for the fish.

As soon as he broke the surface, his features began shifting, and only an instant later, the fish had disappeared; despite his almost super-human reflexes, the boy saw only a quick flash of red.

Swearing, Ranma climbed back into the small boat. "Good thing I brought some hot water," he muttered wearily, suspecting that he still had ha long day ahead of him. Reaching for the oars, the he figured he could just as well start looking for another fish while waiting for the clothes to dry enough for the hot water to be useful.

"Ranko!" he heard a surprised voice exclaim beyond his back, and nearly fell out of the boat from shock as he turned to see his mother waving at him from another rowing boat. "Didn't think I'd see *you* here," Nodoka smiled at him.

"Mu... Auntie Saotome," Ranma faltered. "I could say the same thing."

"Tell me, dearie, have you seen Ranma and Akane?" the woman asked worriedly. "An old man in the village told me they'd probably be on the lake, but the only ones I can find are you and that big man." A lonely tear appeared in the corner of her eye as her voice grew desperate. "They haven't drowned, have they?"

"Hehe..." Ranma laughed nervously, a large drop of sweat forming on the back of his head. "No, we, umm, they already left. Hours ago, actually. They must be far off already!"

"Oh." The mother sighed dejectedly. "Any idea where they were going?"

"Sorry." He shook his head, scratching the back of his head as he smiled apologetically. "They didn't tell me."

"Well then, thanks anyway." Nodoka resumed her rowing, her arms suddenly feeling like lead, and she briefly wished she could've convinced the Hibiki boy to come with her in the boat - she found that strange fear of water of his awfully unmanly. Still, now, she'd been so close...

Ranma watched her slowly become smaller and smaller, breathing a sigh of relief as he brushed a few tears of longing out of his eyes.  
>_Sorry, mom,_ he thought to himself. _Maybe soon..._<p>

* * *

><p>The boy looked straight down into the water, intensely watching the fish below, his deep concentration making him mostly unaware of his surroundings. It seemed to be coming closer to the surface now, and would soon be in reach. Closer... Closer... There! Like lightning, Ranma struck out with his arm to grab it.<p>

He wasn't the only one with eyes on this specific fish, though, and his fist collided with that of the giant, who, being every bit as focused, hadn't noticed him.

The impact struck up a large fountain of water, and allowed the red fish to get away easily.

The two looked into each others eyes so hard you could almost see the flashes of lightning between them.

"That one was *mine*!" the big man rumbled in his deep, bass voice. "You scared it away!"

"No way!" retorted Ranma with equal fury, as he waved his fist in the air. "Now get out of my way!"

His eyes narrowing, the giant sent a hand towards her with surprising speed, and lifted Ranma by his thin, female waist; the man could wrap his enormous fingers almost all the way around it.

The boy-turned-girl struggled to get loose, but it proved to be in vain, and the big man snarled angrily at him. "You're the one who told me to go over here, so stop bothering me." He raised Ranma further into the air, and threw him away.

The pig-tailed martial artist sputtered furiously as he rose out of the water, murder in his eyes. Behind him, one of the red-fishes, which had been swimming around near to where the giant threw him, quickly decided to leave. "Boy are you gonna get it," Ranma hissed.

* * *

><p>Wearily, Nodoka took the last few pulls to bring her ashore, and jumped out of the small boat, wiping the sweat from her brow as she found that Ryouga, who thankfully still sat waiting at the same spot, had been joined by three somewhat familiar girls.<p>

"Auntie Saotome!" Ukyou greeted her, smiling slightly. "Did you find Ranma?"

"Sorry." The mother shook her head dejectedly. "They've already left, girls. Do you have any idea where they might heading?"

The "fiancees" heaved a collective sigh, indicating that they probably didn't.

* * *

><p>"Take this!" The pig-tailed martial artist struck out with a quick fist. The giant tried to sidestep it, but the lake they were immersed in slowed him down, and it struck his gut head on.<p>

The man, however, just grinned and shook it off. "That supposed to hurt?" He sent out a punch of his own, but Ranma managed to throw himself backward hard enough to get out of range, and the large hand broke the surface with a large splash of water.

_Damn,_ the boy swore to himself, as he tried to throw himself at his opponent with a flying kick, but of course, there are easier things to do than trying to jump while treading water, and despite his great skill, he barely got enough force to hit the giant, once again provoking no other reaction than a slight grin.

Already, the fight had been going on for almost fifteen minutes, and neither combatant was accomplishing much, beyond growing exhausted.

The large man tried an axe-kick, but Ranma could see it coming miles ahead - or at least a few feet; more than enough when it had to travel through water for said few feet - and ducked to the side. The foot splashed into the lake, sending one of the curious fishes, which had been coming close, swimming away in a flash of red.

The pig-tailed martial artist turned to look at the potential catch disappearing, then back at his opponent. For a few seconds, they both surveyed the lake around them, then struck their foreheads into their palms almost simultaneously.

"Looks like we scared them all away," Ranma ventured, wearily.

The giant nodded. "No point in fighting *now*." He stretched out one of his enormous palms. "Peace?"

The boy shook it, his own feminine hand nearly disappearing in that of the large man. "Sure." His stomach rumbled.

The man grinned at him. "All the fighting got you hungry too, eh? I think I saw a restaurant back in the village; let's go have a bite together."

* * *

><p>"Didn't catch it?" Akane needed only one look at her fiance's face as they sat down at a table in the small restaurant.<p>

Ranma sighed. "Nope." He turned towards the giant. "So, how come you wanna catch the fish? You got some curse, too?"

The man scratched the back of his head confusedly. "Curse? Nah, as you probably know, other than being famous for tasting so good, the legendary Akairo no Nishin also makes everybody who eats it smaller." He made a point out of looking down at them, smiling wistfully. "You can probably guess why I want it."

Mentally, Ranma swore, vowing a violent revenge on a certain little old pervert. "So, you don't like being big?" he asked.

The giant shook his head, reaching inside the large coat he now wore to procure a stack of papers which he began sorting through. "You see, for a year now, I've been exchanging letters with this sweet girl. Since then, we've grown really fond of each other, and now, she wants to meet me." Finally finding what he sought, he held up a worn photo to show them. "This is her and her father. I haven't dared tell her about how big I am - look, she's so small!"

Indeed. The photo depicted a very cute girl, with delicate features and long, well-combed black hair reaching all the way down to her waist. She smiled sweetly at the camera, embraced from behind by a man who seemed to be several feet taller than her.

"Poor guy," Ranma said sympathetically, vainly trying to come up with some words of comfort as a somewhat sloppily dressed waiter finally brought them a menu.

The giant nodded as he browsed the list. "She's going to show up any minute now..." He trailed of as his eyes caught sight of a particular entry, and stuttered incoherently.

The waiter nodded at them, smiling. "Yes, indeed, the legendary Akairo no Nishin. It's our specialty; you can't find it anywhere else. Anything else you want with that, sir?"

Akane and Ranma grew wide-eyed, their foreheads both hitting the table with a simultaneous *thud*.

* * *

><p>The man, now no larger than Ranma, jumped about the road, almost delirious with joy. "I'm normal! I'm normal! I'm normal!" he sang, playfully, and the pair smiled at him, glad that at least not everybody seemed to be stuck with their troubles forever.<p>

His celebration was cut short as he bumped into something, and raised his head to look into the eyes of a familiar face.

The girl looked down at him, heaving a disappointed sigh. "I imagined you much taller," she concluded, and turned back towards her father, a huge man who would have dwarfed even the giant at his original height.

* * *

><p>Ranma waited at the far end of the gangway, impatiently tapping his fingers against the rail."Come on, Akane," he hissed tiredly. "If you don't step aboard soon, the ship will leave without you!"<p>

The girl nodded nervously. "I know, it's just that..." She left it hanging for a few moments. "Well, I've never been outside Japan before, and..."

He scoffed at her, grinning somewhat condescendingly. "What, you scared or something?"

"Hmph." She snorted as she slowly joined him on deck, looking down at the water below with a slight touch of fear in her eyes. "Not really. I guess this just feels like a bigger step for me than it does for you."

"I hear ya." The boy let his arms slide into his pockets as he turned to lean his back against the rail. "Well, we better find something in China; our tickets cost me almost all the money I had saved up."

Akane gasped, and he smiled reassuringly at her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry. If it gets me cured, it's worth every single yen."

Slowly, the gangway rose, until it had come fully aboard the ship, and with a deep, loud hooting, the large vehicle gradually began gaining speed, leaving the land of the rising sun behind.

* * *

><p>When Nodoka and Ryouga stepped onto the harbor, the ship had gained quite a bit of distance; too much for even the agile boy to take in a single leap, but the two teenagers at the aft end of the ship still remained close enough for there to be no doubt about their identity; the boy with his back against them, pigtail hanging down towards the depths of the ocean, and the girl soundlessly waving goodbye to her motherland. Noticing the pair, Akane tapped the pig-tailed martial artist's shoulder, trying to tell him something they couldn't hear, but he merely grunted inaudibly in reply, and didn't bother to turn around.<p>

"Damn!" Ryouga swore. "If we'd been just a few minutes earlier..."

The mother surprised him by merely shrugging. "At least now we *know* they left the country; if we hadn't happened to come here, we'd probably keep looking in Japan."

"I... guess so," the boy nodded as the heat of anger that had been building sunk out of him. "So, what do we do now?"

Nodoka scratched her chin, counting in her head. "I should have enough money to afford the ride to China..."

* * *

><p>The mother and arch-rival were not the only one to observe the departure; from a vantage point on one of the other piers, three girls watched the ship ever so slowly turn into a speck on the horizon.<p>

"Poor Ranma," Kodachi ventured. "As if it were not enough that the Tendou witch keeps him bound, she also forces him to travel on a mere boat! Oh, how it must hurt!"

"Whatever," Ukyou quipped, choosing for the moment to keep her thoughts about spoiled brats to herself. "We gotta follow them, somehow."

Shampoo nodded grimly. "I swim before, can do again!"

"Tsk." The Kunou girl clicked her tongue disdainfully. "I'll arrange a flight for us, of course. Why, we might even get there in time to meet darling Ranma as he comes ashore!"

* * *

><p>Nodoka looked ahead. Somewhere, there, beyond all the water, lay the vast country of China, and her son, Ranma. It would be like searching for a needle in a haystack ... but she had promised herself not to lose hope, no matter what happened.<p>

"Watcha looking at?" Ryouga asked her, though she could read from his tone that he wasn't *really* curious.

The boy walked towards her, his eyes not really focusing on anything in particular, when suddenly, his foot reached a wet patch on the deck, and he slipped, performing an impressive somersault, which ended in a loud *splash* as he fell into the cold waters below.

"Ryouga!" The mother turned, looking to see where the boy had fallen, but in vain; it seemed as if the ocean had devoured him, for no young man was in sight.

Of course, it might have helped if she looked for a small, black pig instead, but as she didn't know, she could but assume that the poor boy had drowned. A tear fell into the water, a tear that, in the sea that surrounded it, felt just as meaningless as the death that had caused it...

* * *

><p>Behind the ship followed a young girl, riding on the back of an enourmous boar. She stopped briefly to pick up a small, black pig that someone had dropped from the ship. Poor little thing! It seemed so upset and agitated, and of course, freezing cold. "Don't worry, cutie," the girl smiled at it as she scratched it behind its ear. "Akari will take care of you now."<p>

The pig grunted in reply, happiness at meeting the sweet young girl mixing up with disappointment and anger over something else. It almost seemed to be contemplating jumping out of her grasp to swim ahead on its own.

The girl smiled at it. "Now, now, you'll help me find darling Ranma, won't you, little pig?"

Oh yes, that suited it just fine.


	2. China

A Boy Went Up A Hill

or

Akane and Ranma's Excellent^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HGreat Adventure

A Ranma 1/2 fanfic, by Ronny Hedin

Chapter 2: China

A loud splashing sound awoke Akane from her uneven slumber just as someone hastily slammed open the door to her cabin.

Tiredly, she tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes, disoriented for the first few seconds. Just as she was about to shout at Ranma for not being more careful, the girl felt the light of a lantern shine on her head, and removed her hands, finding to her surprise that her fiance hadn't been the one responsible. "Something wrong?" she grunted tiredly, glaring at the sailor who had entered without quite having awaken yet.

The tall, dirty man just grinned at her, unintimidated. "Wrong? Oh, no, nothing's wrong." He stepped aside to let one of his friends step into the room. "We're just going to have a bit of fun with you, girl. A large bit, hopefully."

Shaking her fists in fury, Akane turned her head to the side to look at the bunk where Ranma was supposed to be sleeping, finding it empty.

The sailor grinned at her again, showing a long row of yellow teeth. "Your boyfriend? Oh, we tied him up and tossed him overboard. Don't want any interruptions."

Eyes ablaze, Akane, now fully awake, jumped out of the bunk and into a battle stance. "Just try, you perverts," she snarled, then had to stiffle a yawn, mentally cursing herself for the opening it left.

Another man entered; the captain, this time. He scratched his unshaven chin, taking time to appreciate the view the girl gave as she'd apparantly forgotten in her anger that she'd been sleeping in only her panties. Lecherous smiles appeared on all the men's faces as they drooled in anticipitation of things to come.

Their facial expressions surprised the girl, until she finally realized her mistake, and a blush briefly overtook her face, before she managed to shake it off, her eyes narrowing even further in anger.

"Really," the captain chuckled condescendingly, "you're a poor little girl, and we're a whole crew of strong men..."

* * *

><p>Wearily, Ranma climbed up the side of the boat, loose strands of rope clinging to his wet, female form. He noted a series of splashes as one man after another flew overboard above his head, and ignored the screams for help that followed. "Those guys really had it coming," he mumbled to himself, as he finally heaved himself over the rail with one last, heavy pull. "Now, where can I find some hot water around here..."<p>

* * *

><p>Akane looked at the steering wheel, then at Ranma, then back at the wheel again. "Look," she said after a while, with traces of worry in her voice, "do you know how to navigate this thing?"<p>

Ranma turned to look at the wheel, placing a hand on his chin as his brow furrowed in thought. Briefly, hope rose in the girl's chest ...

Then, he looked back at her again, his face still carefree. "Can't say that I do."

Hands on her hips, she tapped her foot against the deck, angry at Ranma for not worrying. "So, how are we supposed to get to China now?"

"If *you* don't know, maybe you shouldn't have tossed the crew overboard!" the boy told her, his voice as arrogant and derisive as always, and he sighed. "Sheesh, so violent..." he added under his breath.

Akane took a few short, decisive steps forward, bringing her angry face within an inch of his, and her fists clenched. "Are you suggesting I *let* those perverts..."

"Hey, hey!" Ranma interrupted her, holding up his hands in defense. "Don't worry." He still seemed totally unfazed by the problem at hand.

"Don't worry?" She shouted into his face, exasperated, and turned around, folding her arms. "Do you have *any* idea where we're going?"

"I know where China is," he replied, confidently. "Just how hard can it be, anyway?"

* * *

><p>Folding the letter she'd recieved from her great-granddaughter, Cologne cackled to herself. "So, son-in-law is in China, is he?" Absent-mindedly, the old woman scratched her chin. "If I contact the village, they should be able to get him easily."<p>

* * *

><p>With a flick of her cane, and a swift leap, the Amazon matriarch jumped onto the table surface. "Mousse!" she shouted, the commanding strength in her voice far beyond what one would've expected from an old crone like her.<p>

Only a few moments later, the boy in question came running out of the kitchen. "What's the matter, old ghoul?"

Cologne snorted, jumping to another table with amazing agility. "Who's an old ghoul?" She hit him over the head with her cane, almost making the boy fall to the floor as he cried out in pain. "And wear your glasses, boy; I'm over *here*."

Holding a hand behind his head in embarassement (partially as an effort to cover the emerging bump), Mousse turned from the potted plant to face the old woman. "Whatever. Just tell me what it is you've got to say," he told her, pretending to ignore the blow.

She grinned at him."Not interested, eh? Even though Shampoo might be in danger?"

The boy froze. "Shampoo? In danger?"

Hands shaking, he turned to run, and she had to hit him again to make him stop. "Look, boy," she said, holding up a letter. "I need you to deliver this personally to the elders."

The possibility of a threat to his loved one making him alert, Mousse snatched the sealed envelope out of her hands. "I will do anything to protect my dear Shampoo," he announced, puffing out his chest.

Cologne just shook her head. "Make sure you hurry," she cautioned him, in a low voice. "And it is important that you return here after delivering it." Better make sure the boy wouldn't be in the way...

* * *

><p>The pair having somehow miraculously managed to land the boat properly, Ranma jumped ashore, waiting a few seconds for his fiancee to follow.<p>

They surveyed their surroundings briefly. Most of the houses in the small village were one-storied wooden ones, and there were no concrete roads between them, only hard-trodden dirt. A child wandered by, accompanied by a happily barking dog, and they could see people here and there, but there were certainly no milling crowds, no plans flying in the sky above, or any other signs of a bustling metropolis.

Akane cast her fiance a suspicious glance. "Are you *sure* you took the right course?" she questioned him irritatedly.

Ignorering her, the boy scratched the back of his head in confusion. "Strange," he said. "Last time, this was a big city. I wonder why it's shrunk..."

Her fist came flying, throwing Ranma to the ground, and he wearily pushed himself up, rubbing the spot on his cheek where the punch had hit. "Hey, what now?" he grumbled to himself, knowing that there would be little point in asking the question out loud; she wouldn't bother to answer, anyway.

Meanwhile, the girl walked up to one of the nearby men. "Excuse me, sir, could you possibly tell me where we are?" she asked him politely, a friendly smile on her face.

The next problem presented itself, as the man replied with a long harangue of drawn-out, seemingly unconnected syllables, some of which she couldn't even pronounce. "Thanks anyway," the girl grumbled, more to herself than to the man, and stomped back to where her fiance still remained standing. "Do you know Chinese, Ranma?" she questioned him.

The boy shook his shoulders. "Nope, not a word."

It took the girl an effort of will not to fall backwards. "Let me get this straight," she fumed. "You brought me here, without even knowing the language?"

"Hey," he protested, just as in the distance, unnoticed by them all, a cute, long-haired girl stepped ashore, a small black pig held tight in her arms. "Pop and I managed for years without knowing any Chinese..."

* * *

><p>All around the main square, people turned around to stare with big eyes at the small airplane that had just landed in their midst, forcing the previously busy crowd to part or be crushed; in fact, several people had been hit in their heads by the landing wheels as the vehicle caming flying down, but thankfully, none of them seemed to be badly hurt.<p>

For a while, nothing happened; people stared at the white-painted metallic bird, scratching their heads in confusion and generally wondering just what madness lay behind this. Then, just as they were about to start whispering to each other, the hatch opened, a stairway slowly unfolded itself, and three young girls stepped out and down onto the square.

They looked at each other, then at the crowd, still staring silently at them.

"These peasants seem rather rude, in my most humble opinion," Kodachi observed with a derisive snort.

"Never mind them," Ukyou suggested, voicing her opinions with firm resolve. "We need to find Ranma."

"Right you are, girl," the gymnast nodded in responsive, her voice still as condescending as always. She took a single, elaborate step forward, tapping the nearest man on the shoulder. "Excuse me, commoner," she said, "have you by chance happened to see my darling Ranma?"

The man scratched the back of his head, turning his face slightly to the left to look at her from a different angle, then repeated the action in the other direction, and finally scratched the back of his head again, confusion evident in his eyes. He still didn't say anything.

Angered, Kodachi gave off an irritated snort. "Don't you have any respect for your betters, you filthy lout?" She waved a hand in the air, pondering slapping him to produce an answer, but decided against it. "Now, have you seen..."

Ukyou interrupted the girl by placing a hand on his shoulders. "You know, he probably doesn't know Japanese."

Kodachi gave her an indigned look. "What, doesn't know Japanese? What manner of barbarians are these?"

"Chinese, hon." The chef sighed, shaking her head. "What world do you live in, anyway?"

"Well," the gymnast told her, ignoring the barb, "do *you* know this barbaric tongue, then?"

"Nope, but that's no problem." Ukyou flashed a smile, turning to the third, until now silent, member of the group. " Shampoo, you're from China, so..."

The smile quickly faded away as the amazon gave her a dejected look. "Shampoo sorry, but she only know very little. In village, speak special Amazon dialect, very different from language they speak here."

The other two girls heaved a deep sigh. This was going to be a *long* trip...

* * *

><p>Ranma sighed tiredly, as yet another of the villagers rattled off a cryptical reply in Chinese. "I don't believe this," he told his fiancee. "*None* of these guys seem to know Japanese."<p>

She nodded. "Just our luck, eh?"

"Ah, what the heck." Angrily, the boy kicked an innocent rock off into the distance, where it narrowly missed a window, bouncing off a wall to land on the earthen road next to the building. "Even if we *could* speak with them, it's not like we could just march up to

somebody and ask, 'excuse me, do you know where we can find the secret, well-hidden legendary cursed springs of Jusenkyou?'" Resigned, he stuck his hands firmly into his pockets.

A small boy, perhaps ten years of age, who had been playing absent-mindedly with a ball a couple of feet away from the pair, walked up to them, bowing politely. "Excuse me," he said, the Chinese accent so evident they could only barely understand his Japanese, "Was you

looking fol Ju-sen-kyou?" He pronounced the last word with elaborate carefulness to make sure he got it right.

"Uh..." Taken totally by surprise, Ranma looked down at the boy. "Yes, we where. Why?"

"Then, you take that load there to..."

As the boy started rattling off the directions, Ranma and Akane stared into each other's eyes, dumbfounded.

Unseen, Akari watched them from around a corner, motioning for Katsunishiki to keep shut with one arm while holding on to P-chan with the other.

* * *

><p>The three girls walked down the street, all highly irritated at still not having managed to find anything, when Ukyou, who walked to the leftmost side of the group, felt a tap on her shoulder. Holding a hand out to make the other two stop, she turned around, seeing a<p>

short, somewhat pudgy man, with cheap-looking clothes and a head that had begun to grow bald.

She eyed him suspiciously. "What do you want?"

"Yes," Kodachi added in, sneering haughtily, "why did you assume the right to halt us, commoner?"

The man lent forward, putting a finger to his lips to silence them. "I know someone who might know something," he whispered, a slight accent making it obvious it was not his native tongue he spoke in. "If you follow me, I can take you somewhere to meet someone."

Ukyou raised an inquisitive eyebrow towards the other two. The girls nodded slightly, and they followed the man off into the bustling crowd.

* * *

><p>Nodoka sighed to herself. She'd been walking the city for several ours, and still hadn't found even a trace of her son. Maybe the man who told her where Ranma and Akane had been heading had lied? That would be terrible; finding them in a country as huge as China would be like looking for a needle in a haystack...<p>

Starting to lose hope, she walked past a small, dark side-street - then took a step back to look again.

No, her eyes hadn't decieved her; at the other end of that alley stood Kodachi, Shampoo and Ukyou. _Maybe they've found something,_ the Saotome mother thought, her day immediately looking at least marginally brighter.

Just as she was about to start walking towards the trio, three large crates appeared above their heads, slamming down against the ground and trapping the girls inside. On the other side, she could see three large men, their bodies all bulging with muscle, and the thugs hefted the boxes into their hands as they jumped onto a tri-seated bicycle and headed off with considerable speed, their thick legs pushing the pedals around with almost perfect coordination.

Wasting no time, Nodoka ran off after them, a determined gleam entering her eyes as she realized she'd been the only one to see what had happened, or at least the only one to care.

On foot, though, she had no chance of catching up with the kidnappers - if kidnappers they were - and she skidded to a halt as she came out on the other side of the side-street. A surprised young boy, who'd been riding peacefully down the road, barely managed to bring his bike to a halt quickly enough not to run into the middle-aged woman, and he bowed his head down as he shouted an apology, about to get going again.

Nodoka, however, saw her chance. "Sorry, boy," she commanded, "but I'll have to borrow this."

The boy didn't really understand her words, but in combination with the woman's tone of voice, the message transmitted by the long, thin cloth-covered object she waved in his face came across loud and clear, and he jumped off, watching with big eyes as Nodoka sped off into the distance.

Briefly, he wondered if his father would believe him when he explained that a middle-aged japanese woman in a kimono had stolen his brand new bike.

* * *

><p>Nodoka huffed and wheezed as she brought the bike up to the top of a small hill. While she might have been in fairly good condition (especially considering she was a middle-aged japanese housewife -supposedly an unusually traditional one), there was just no way she could keep up with three well-trained young men, and now, the other bike had become just a small spot, off in the distance.<p>

As luck would have it, though, it choose this moment to stop, and the woman could barely make out the three men carting the boxes through the door of a nearby building. Smiling to herself, she found new strength, and set off down the other side of the hill.

The downhill slope gave her a much-needed burst off speed, and soon, the Saotome mother stepped off her vehicle, letting the neon-green mountainbike rest against the wall of a rather seedy-looking shop, a somewhat faded sign above the dusty door announcing it to be what Nodoka interpreted as a laundry; at the very least, its name had to do with cleanliness of some sort.

After a moment of hesitation, she stepped up to the door, pushing it inwards, and entered.

Nothing about the place seemed suspicious on the inside, either, even if she *had* certainly seen establishments of higher class. A row of greyish dresses on a rack to the side indicated that her first assumptions about the nature of the place were probably correct, and behind a surprisingly well-polished counter stood a bored-looking woman who would best be described by the adjective "fat"; her red dress, the color severely washed out, snapped tight against her forms, making her overweight even more apparant.

"Excuse me?" Nodoka said, to catch the woman's attention; her words were polite, but she spoke them with enough force that the fat lady would have no doubts about her determination.

"Hm, yes?" The owner - if owner she was - plastered on only the slightest smile necessary for customer relations, not looking up from the newspaper she'd been reading.

"Three men entered here just recently, each of them carrying a large wooden box. Where'd they go?" the Saotome mother questioned her, sharply.

The fat woman shrugged. "Don't know about..." Then, as she looked up, meeting Nodoka's face, a look of recognition came over her, followed by fear. She hesitated, then spoke as she could see the fires of determination burning beneath Nodoka's eyes. "A-aren't you the mother of the evil, dangerous Ranma Saotome?" she stuttered.

Taken totally by surprise, Nodoka could do little more than stare in confusion at the woman. This, however, proved to be enough.

"They took the jeep on the back yard," the fat lady hastily explained, for some reason fearing the wrath of this japanese woman who by all accounts should have been a total stranger to her. "I don't know where our headquarters are, but they took the road towards..."

* * *

><p>"Hmmm," Ranma hmmed, studying the road sign ahead of them. The boy racked his mind, but to no avail; other than the numbers indicating distance, he could recognize none of the characters thereupon, and judging by his fiancee's face neither could she. With the dense forest surrounding them, there wasn't even any helpful landmarks (not that they'd recognize any even if they *did* exist), and both of the forks into which the large, concrete road split were equally wide, neither showing any sign of being preferable over the other.<p>

He scratched his head, looking down the road to the left, then the right one, finally returning to staring at the sign. "Hmmm," he repeated.

"So," Akane questioned him impatiently, "which way do we go?"

With considerable hesitation, her fiance pointed to the right road. "That way, I think," he. suggested.

She raised a questioning eyebrow.

"No, really, it is that way," Ranma insisted, trying to convince himself. "No, wait, it's the other one. It is. I'm sure." As he neared the end of the sentence, his voice grew firm; lying to himself was an area in which the boy had considerable practice.

Akane sighed, putting her hands on her hips. "Really, Ranma." She had long since grown tired of her fiance's ability to claim knowledge with complete confidence even when he had no idea what he was speaking of. "This is the fourth time today. Just admit it, we're totally lost."

Ranma snorted disdainfully. "Who do think I am, Ryouga? Trust me, I know where we're going."

"If you say so." She put considerable doubt in her voice, but still followed the boy as he started heading off down the road to the left. A short distance behind, a short girl and a big pig followed *them*.

* * *

><p>A bit down the road, they noted a group of people in the distance, just where the dark forest broke out into plains, and soon, Ranma and Akane hurried their steps as it became visible that four of the men surrounded the fifth, their stances obviously hostile.<p>

The four aggressors were all large, burly men, sloppily dressed in sturdy but dirty unwashed clothes, obviously more there to provide shelter from weather and wind than to decorate. In combination with the facts that neither of them seemed to have even seen a razor (or soap, for that matter) in the last week and that they all held wooden clubs in their hands, they could as well have held signs proclaiming "We're bandits!"

Though the man they surrounded was certainly not small, he seemed obviously innocent. Quite tall, the heavily overweight cacausian man towered several inches above the largest of the bandits, but his plushy cheeks made him seem more jovial than malevolent, and he quivered in fear as the attackers slowly drew closer. A pair of tight jeans covered his thick, shaking legs, and the neon-green jacket he wore definitely made him stand out, as well as his modern, black backpack.

"Leave him alone!" Ranma shouted in warning, as he and Akane drewcloser.

The men turned to regard the pair, understanding the intent of the words if not their exact meaning, and disdainful smiles spread across their faces as they waved their clubs threateningly; obviously, the bandits didn't think much of the youngsters.

"If I had fifty yen for every time..." Ranma muttered under his breath.

* * *

><p>The man, who had thrown himself to the ground, look up at his rescuers, deep gratitude obvious in the small, round blue eyes that had hid under his thick glasses. "Wow, thanks, kids," he said in his native tongue, his voice surprisingly cheery considering the predicament he had just been in. "That sure was some mightily impressive fighting, I must say. Oh, you *do* speak English, don't you?"<p>

"Um... yes, I guess so..." Akane ventured, somewhat nervously, as the man slowly pushed himself to his feet and dusted off his clothes, finally stretching a hand towards the pair.

"Pleased to meet you," he said, now seeming almost to have forgotten the whole bandit situation. "Name's Bill. Say, where are you two heading, kids? Myself, I'm going to that cursed springs place, Dussenkoy or whatever its name is." He grinned with a hint of embarassement. "I'm afraid I'm not too good at those Chinese names."

Ranma stared at them man, wide-eyed. "You're going to Jusenkyou?" he questioned, summoning every ounce of English-skill he possessed.

"Oh, you're going there too?" Bill blathered on, seemingly not bothered by the heavy Japanese accent with which the boy spoke. "Yeah, that's right." He produced a stack of papers from one of the many deep pockets on his enormous jacket. "It should be *that* way, I think," he said, looking in the direction from which the pair had arrived.

Noticing their confused faces, he showed them the paper, and they saw that it was a map of China, printed a variety of cheerful colors, with the words "Tourist map to Jusenkyou" imprinted in large, bold letters at the top.

"Oh, I'm so glad to have someone to speak to," Bill told them as they started walking, "it's so boring to be travelling all alone. You know, it's kinda amusing, this is the first time I've been around these parts, and just the other day, I..."

The trio walked off, and Akari shook her head as she picked up the small black pig (poor dear had gotten loose *again* - you could almost think it *wanted* to escape); judging by the way the American's lips kept moving up and down at an incessant pace, she should be very happy she could follow them without having to get close enough to hear.

* * *

><p>"Oh, yes, miss, I saw that jeep alright," the simple farmer said, scratching his stubble-covered chin. "Yesterday, it must've been."<p>

"Oh, good," Nodoka exclaimed, glad that she'd learned Chinese in her younger days - without it, this search would've been hopeless. "Where were they heading?"

"Well," the man noted, "they only passed through, so I can't say for sure, but they went off in that direction." He pointed to one of the two roads - other than the one the woman had arrived on - that lead out of the village. "Seemed to be in an awful hurry, too."

"I see. Thanks for your help." As she turned away to return to the car she'd rented, she reached into her pocket to bring out a worn photo of a handsome, pig-tailed young man, staring at it longingly. "Ranma..." she whispered to herself, as so often before feeling a tear slowly form in the corner of her eye.

"Er, excuse me, miss," the farmer interrupted her musings, having caught a glance of the photo.

She looked up at him, trying but failing to wipe the sad expression off her face. "Yes?"

"That boy on the picture there... That's your son or something?"

She nodded, confused. "Yes, why?" An ever-so-slight hint of irritation crept into her voice; why'd he think it was any of *his* problems?

She soon regretted that anger, though. "Oh, I think I saw him," the man answered her. "Just a few hours ago, he came passing by. Had a girl with him, too, and some big foreigner." The man scratched his chin again, thoughtfully.

Nodoka felt her heart leap up to her throat as it began beating wildly. "Really?" she asked, unable to hide her excitement. "Which way did they go?" She hoped beyond hope that...

...but no. "That way, if I remember correctly," the farmer told her, pointing in the *other* direction.

"Thank you," she said, bowing politely. How she wished she could go after her son... but he obviously still managed on his own, whereas the poor three girls had been kidnapped, and no-one but her knew it; no-one but her could save them. She'd never forgive herself if something happened to them.

* * *

><p>"Well," Bill said, looking at the pleasant smile that slowly spread upon the pig-tailed young man's face. "this Jusenkyou, eh? From your reaction I take it you've been here before, boy?"<p>

Ranma nodded. "Yep. Actually, I-"

The american interrupted him, as he already had done innumerable times during their short period together. "Doesn't look like that much, does it? Just a lot of these small springs." He grinned. "We have a place sorta like this back at home, lots of holes in the ground with water in 'em. Well, except, of course, they're a lot *larger*; it *is* after all in America."

"So-" Akane tried to get a word in, but in vain.

"These springs are supposed to be cursed, though, I hear, but I guess you should know that, having been here before? Not like back at home, where you could take a bath without having to fear turning into something." Briefly, he looked at the springs thoughtfully, and both of the young japanese felt their moods sinking, having learned that this was a sign the american had one of his (supposedly) amusing anecdotes coming up. "Well," Bill said, "there was this time aunt Vera fell into one of 'em, and when she came up, she looked like a hippo.

But I guess that must've been because that fat old woman *always* looked like a hippo." He laughed loudly.

Ranma and Akane joined the laughter with somewhat less enthusiasm, fearing that he might try to tell another joke if the first one didn't go over well.

The big, american man took a few steps forward. "Anyway, I'm gonna go have a closer look at these things, you coming?"

"No," Ranma answered, perhaps almost a bit *too* quickly, in his heavily accented English. "We going to talk to guide."

"Ah," Bill nodded in understanding, waving his hand at them. "Well, see you later, then!"

* * *

><p>The man smiled at them. "Yes, honorable customer, how can this humble guide help you?"<p>

"We're looking for something very specific," Ranma told him. "The spring of Drowned Boy."

The guide's face fell. "Oh, so sorry, honorable customer. Spring is out of order."

"What?" Akane shouted, surprised. "You mean we came all this way for nothing?"

"Calm down, Akane," Ranma told her, downcast.

"Don't you tell me when to calm down!" she screamed angrily right into his ear, then, with a hint of embarrassement, turned back at the guide. "Isn't there some other-"

"Sorry, honorable miss customer, no," he interrupted her. "Very tragic story; about a month ago, I wake up in the night because of explosions, and when I go to look, I note someone has blown up all the springs where some kind of male human has drowned. All water thrown about and only big hole in ground left. It should come back but have no idea how long it will take."

Akane laid an arm over her fiance's shoulder, trying to shake him out of the silent, empty staring at the ground he had fallen into. "Guess this means we'll just have to keep looking for a cure, eh, Ranma?" she said, with false cheerfulness.

"Wait!" the guide interrupted them. "Now I remember, have bottle of Drowned Boy water saved away, enough for one person. Wait, I will go fetch."

He entered his hut with hurried steps, and they could hear him scrounging about inside the small building; about a minute later, he came out, proudly holding up a black, ceramic casket.

The pair stared at it in awe, their happiness at having found a cure stunning them for a while ... until, suddenly, the guide stepped up to them and emptied the contents of the casket right over Akane's head, causing the girl to swiftly change into a tall, handsome young man

with soft, delicate facial features, the haircut fitting surprisingly well.

"What..." Akane snarled furiously.

"Did..." Ranma continued, with equal anger.

"You..."

"Just..."

"DO?" the both finished, screaming right into the face of the man, the force of their voices blowing his hair backwards.

The guide, however, did not seem to notice, as he smiled happily, eyes closed. "I didn't recognize honorable customer, but when noticed how you act like tomboy, I understand, must have fallen in Spring of Drowned Girl! But, don't worry, now you never have to worry about turning into girl again. Look!"

He took the bucket of water he'd been holding in his other hand, and splashed some of its contents onto the newly created boy, not noticing that in the process, some of it hit the other boy, swiftly turning him into a her. "Look," he smiled. "Now Honorable Customer is still boy So-"

Whatever more he had intended to say was cut off, as Akane's now big, broad hands wrapped firmly around his throat, squeezing hard as the girl-turned-boy shook him back and forth. "Who's a tomboy, you big idiot?" she snarled. "Why I oughta' kill you, you..."

Swiftly, the guide swung the bucket again, letting the rest of its content fall over his head, and in an instant, he grew, turning into a veritable giant of man, muscles bulging across his broad shoulders. "So sorry, Honorable Customer," he said, his voice now several octaves deeper, as he grabbed both the young japanese by their collars. "Cannot have fight at Jusenkyou, so I bathe in Spring of Drowned Bouncer, and now have to throw Honorable Customer out."

* * *

><p>With surprising strength, Cologne used her cane to flick the large iron pot off the stove, waiting patiently as she allowed its contents to steam off for a while before taking it outside to serve. If she estimated his speed and the time the drop-off would take correctly, the boy should be returning any minute now.<p>

Before she'd finished the thought, a gentle knocking on the window caught her attention, and she opened it surreptiously, letting the duck fly in. You could never be careful enough these days; if anybody saw an animal come in through the restaurant window, it could start

dangerous rumours.

With another flick of her cane, she lifted the pot of boiling water that had been waiting for him, turning her back to the duck as she let the contents spill over it.

"So, Mousse," she said, while the boy hurriedly threw on the clothes left for him in the corner, "did you deliver the letter."

"Of course, old ghoul." She could sense his nodding, and decided for the moment not to waste time reproaching him for the insult. "Made sure the elders got it, then came right back here."

"And I thought you were worried about your dear Shampoo, boy," the old woman cackled. "Didn't you stay to find out what was written in the letter?"

Mouse snorted. "You senile old hag!" he snarled, adressing an innocent pot standing in a corner - the boy hadn't bothered to put his glasses on when he dressed. "You said it was important I returned immediately, so of course I did." And judging by the suspicious tone creeping into his voice, he now probably regretted not having checked.

Cologne whacked him over the head with her cane. "Indeed I did. Now get out of here, I have cooking to do."

"Whatever." The boy left the kitchen, head held high in defiance.

* * *

><p>As they walked along the small, beaten path, Akane snarled with fury, shaking her tightly knit fists with barely suppressed anger in front of her boilingly red face. "Ohhhh," she hissed, "just wait 'til I get my hands on that bastard." Bloodlust shone from her wide-open eyes. "He'll regret even thinking of cursing me..."<p>

The girl - currently rather masculine - trailed off. "Cursing me," she repeated, still angry, but with considerably less force. "Cursing me..."

"That's right," Ranma noted, somewhat calmer than his fiancee but still definitely not pleased with the situation. "I'm ... sorry about this, Akane. I guess you really shouldn't have come along."

She ignored him, sinking to her knees as she realized, finally, what had happened. That she was a boy, now, not the girl she had been born. That she would turn into one whenever cold water touched her. A tear former in her eye as the thoughts of what torture she would inflict on the guide forced her to think of the reason why she wanted to inflict that torture in the first place.

Then, suddenly, she sprang to her feet again, the jump surprising Ranma quite a bit, and she took him by his shoulders, her large, male hands shaking her small, female fiance back and forth wildly. "Back!" she cried desperately. "We have to go back! There's nothing wrong with the spring of drowned girl, *I* can get still get cured!"

"A-akane!" Ranma protested, her actions making him stutter. "I-I don't know which spring it is, and after you got us thrown out, I doubt the guide will tell us."

She let go of him, marginally calmed down. "You're right," she sighed. Again, tears assembled in her eyes, the shock what had just happened making her emotional state rather volatile. "I-I'm a ... a man! A boy! And I'll be one for the rest of my life!" Wildly, she struck out with a fist, and her arm stretched into the air right next to Ranma's head, making the boy glad he didn't stand closer.

"I'm sorry, Akane." He bowed down, the rose, holding up his clenched right fist with firm resolution on his face. "I will find a cure, for both of us. I *must*!" The boy cradled his tall, masculine fiancee into his soft, feminine arms. "Please, Akane calm down. I promise we'll find a cure, but until then, there's nothing to be done. Now let's heat up some water."

* * *

><p>Mousse smiled to himself. The dried up old mummy probably expected him to come help in the restaurant now, but he wouldn't be having any of that. No, his Shampoo might come back any day now, indeed any hour, and by then, he had to have his love-letter finished!<p>

Thus, putting on his glasses and grabbing a calligraphic pen, he sat down at the desk to finish the poem he had started before his hurried departure.

Adjusting his seat, he scanned the paper to find the point where he'd stopped off... then looked back up in shock. That was Cologne's handwriting, not his own, and judging by the heading at the top, it could only be the letter he had just returned from deliviring - or rather, just returned from *not* deliviring.

But if the warning to the elders was here on his desk, where was his unfinished love-letter?

His curiousity roused, he read on, fury rising as he got further into the letter...

* * *

><p>"Um, Ranma," Akane said carefully, as the pair walked down the dirt road, well hidden by the trees on either side. "Do you really think this is a good idea?"<p>

The boy shrugged. "Remember, I was in girl form before." He had, indeed, taken great not to get splashed by water on the way to the village. "Don't know how much contact Cologne has kept, but hopefully, they don't know enough about me to suspect anything."

"If you say so." She nodded, though he could see in her eyes that she still entertained doubts about the prospect of just barging in at the Amazon village asking for a cure.

"They *do* live quite close, you know," Ranma observed ."Probably used to having trouble with curses, and since we're in the area, we might as well try. Anyway, we're so close now, it'll soon be too late to tu-"

Before he could finish the sentence, they detected movement in the trees above, and looked up, seeing something moving about with dizzying speed; only the rustling leaves hinted at his, her or its presence. A second later, the movement took a turn downwards, and a small girl landed in front of their surprised eyes, grinning ferally.

No more than 4 feet tall, she defied her obviously young age by eyeing the percieved intruders suspicously, waving an impressive spear almost twice her height at them as she barked a few words in a language they didn't understand (though Ranma could recognize the dialect from his last visit to this area).

The pig-tailed martial artist scratched his head worriedly, wondering how he could have forgotten this problem *again*. "Err, sorry, we don't quite understand you..." he tried.

The girl eyed the pair with even *more* suspicion, then surprised them by switching to a language they *could* understand, though her accent left a lot to be desired. "You japanese? What you want?"

Ranma looked at his fiancee, then back at the little girl, "Take us to your leader."

* * *

><p>From the pair's somewhat vurnerable position in the middle of the circle, the feeling of being stared at by seven virtual Cologne-clones, the aged amazon matriarchs distinguishable only by minor variations in clothes and apperance, could best be described as unsettling.<p>

"So, outsiders, eh?" one of the elders said.

The one next to her snorted. "I think we've established that fact already, dear."

"Still, they *are* outsiders, and one of them male, no less," a third observed. "Almost rude of them to come barging in here and demand to see the elders, wouldn't you say?"

"Not really," another answered her, from the opposite edge of the circle - forcing Ranma and Akane to swivel on the spot to face her. "We can't have the *children* dealing with outsiders, can we?"

"Why not?" her neighbour asked. "They're independent enough, most of them. For example, my little..."

*Her* neighbour snorted. "Your daughter is just a stupid little bimbo. Why, just last week, I noticed her actually *asking* her husband..."

The last elder bopped the previous one on the head with a wooden cane. "Oh, like you're one to speak. I remember when you were young, you always..."

Ranma coughed to regain the attention of the squabbling matriarchs, then sweated as he felt their stares on him again. "Not to be rude or anything," he told them, in a tone which indicated that he didn't *really* care much for whether he was polite or not, "but there's something we need help with."

"Help?" one of the women snorted. "Why should we help *you*?"

"No need to be rude, dearie," her neighbour reproached her in a somewhat condescending manner.

"Indeed," a third piped in. "At least we can hear them out... "

"Well," Ranma hastened to insert as soon as the pause presented itself, not wanting the meeting to last longer than necessary. "You see, we're searching for a cure to a Jusenkyou curse."

"A jusenkyou curse, eh?" The elder directly in front of them nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, we could be able to help you with that."

"What's a Jusenkyou curse?" another of them asked, confused.

Her neighbour snorted. "Just ignore her, she's a bit senile," she told the pair.

"I'm not!" the accused woman protested under her breath, but did not interrupt further.

"Err, right." Ranma nodded hesitantly. "If that helps, I'm cursed to turn into a girl."

All the elders simultaneously nodded, thoughtfully. "That shouldn't be a problem," one of them told him, in a friendly tone. "We should have some water from the Spring of Drowned Boy stored away."

"Really?" The boy immediately brightened up. "And you'll just give me some?"

The woman who had made the suggestion grinned. "No, of course not. You'll have to face the..."

Collectively, all the other matriarchs picked up where she had left off, their firm voices booming out the words with somewhat exaggerated drama. "Trials of the Amazons!"

"First," one of them spoke up, "you must climb to the top of Karin tower, and there..."

Her neighbour bashed her over the head, hard. "Really, you should stop watching those foreign cartoons, it's a bad influence." She turned to adress the pair. "Actually, first, you must defeat the village champion."

"The village champion?" another of the elders said thoughtfully. "That's Miss Shampoo. Isn't she in Japan?"

"Yes, she is," her neighbour observed. "We'll have to send for her, I guess."

"Errr." Ranma waved his hands in protest, desperately hoping that they didn't notice his profuse sweating. "Really, we don't have time to wait for her to get here..."

One of the elders shrugged. "Ah well, if you say so. I guess we can use the one she fought in the final match, instead; she should be good enough. Can anyone remember who that was?"

Ranma sighed tiredly as the old women tried to decide on the identity of the warrior.

* * *

><p>Nodoka eyed the empty streets of the small village, finding the whole situation strange. Sure, evening had begun to fall, and this was no bustling metropolis, but still, she could see enough to feel that there should be at least *some* activity even at this time of day - and judging by the occasional lit window, the town had not been abandoned, unless very recently so.<p>

Briefly worried, she retraced her route in her head, but could find no errors in it - this *should* be where the kidnappers had been headed - and the road essentialy stopped, so it had to be the place...

Once more she surveyed her surroundings. Still no movement.

_Well, I have to start *somewhere*._

Thus, she turned to the right, entering the small but (at least on the outside) rather modern-looking bookstore.

A quiet bell signalled her entrance as the door closed, and on the inside, she found the store pretty much as she had expected; books lined up on shelves, the most attractive ones collected on a table in the middle. At the far end, a cash-register rested on an undecorated wooden counter, and on its far side, she could hear whisperings from beyond a black drapery hung in a simple doorway. Faintly, she thought she could distinguish the shapes of two men (or women) within.

She didn't have to stand there wondering very long, though; soon, the drapery parted, and a man came out, obviously having been alerted by the bell. Placing himself at the register, he gave her a friendly, professional smile. "Can I help you, miss?" he asked with a slight bow, again making Nodoka glad she had learned Chinese.

It would all have seemed perfectly normal, except for one thing - rather than the simple outfit she had come to expect, the man (for the man's proportions and voice made his gender very clear) wore a blue-and-white dress; rather like Akane's school uniform, in fact, except of course several sizes larger.

Her mind revolted at the thought, and she couldn't stop herself from giving voice to the thought. "Does your *mother* know you're wearing that ... unmanly thing?"

The drapery parted again, this time to let out a woman, significantly older than the man, judging by the wrinkles in her face and her greying hair. "Did you want something, miss?" she asked, croaking.

The woman wore an identical dress.

Nodoka, about to fall forward in surprise, barely caught herself on one of the shelves, pushing a few random books to the floor in the process. Knowing the urgency of her mission, she shook the thoughts of the strange dresses aside for the moments, and stared at the two with hard, firm eyes, the threat in her posture enhanced further by the cloth-covered package on her back.

"Three young girls were kidnapped and brought to this village." She snapped out the words to further unnerve the two. "Do you know anything about it?"

She could see the sweat-drops forming on the foreheads of both mother and son. "Wh- wh- what do you mean?" the man stuttered, barely coherent.

* * *

><p>Ranma looked at the log with dubious eyes, flashbacks of what happened *last* time he ventured into this arena playing inside his head. Out there, the champion (or almost-champion, anyway) smiled confidently at him, the short but well-trained girl crackling her knuckles soundly as she eyed the boy the way a wolf would eye its prey. His failure to look scared didn't disturb her, obviously, she expected *him* to be the overconfident one.<p>

With a sigh, he turned to the watching elders. "Look..."

"What are you waiting for, boy?" one elder of the questioned him almost before he had opened his mouth. "Get out there and get your ass kicked already, we haven't got all day."

Ranma ignored her."Look," he repeated again, "if I defeat her, she'll start claiming I'm her husband, won't she?"

Another woman snorted. "Like there's any chance of an outsider boy like you defeating our champion."

Ranma folded his arms across his chest. "Whatever you say, old ghoul. Just promise I won't have to marry her after tossing her down."

Waiting for him to recover from the seven simultaneous cane-strikes, the elder with authority over this particular test shrugged. "Sure. It's not like it matters, since you have no chance of winning." She laughed disdainfully.

"Promise?" Ranma repeated.

"Yes, I *promise*," the elder told him impatiently. "Now get going so we can get this over with."

* * *

><p>Grinning confidently, Ranma wiped his hands against each other as he stepped off the log, turning towards the elders, who were still staring at him in disbelief.<p>

He opened his mouth to give some smart remark... then quickly brought his hands to his ears, as a terrible wailing sound suddenly began.

"I looooost!" came the scream from behind him, the almost-champion beating her hands wildly against the ground as she cried out her shame of the humiliating loss, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I can't believe I lost to a boy," she sobbed, "and I can't even *marry* him."

"Err..." Ranma whispered to the circle of elders. "Let's get on with the next trial, alright?"

* * *

><p>Ranma sighed tiredly as he waited for the matriarchs to convene at the table again, watching with dismay as they almost came to blows over who was supposed to sit at which seat.<p>

"OK," the one at the position facing him said when they had finally finished. "Now for the second trial." She scratched her chin. "If I could only remember what it is..."

Her neighbour snorted. "Honestly, I don't know how you ever managed to get your position. The second trial is the dreaded gauntlet, of course."

"No no no!" the elder unorthodoxically clad in a t-shirt of japanese design piped in. "You must climb to the top of Karin Tower!"

The woman next to her bapped her over the head. "Will you give that up already?" She turned her head briefly towards Ranma, then back at her collegues. "Really, I like the gauntlet as much as the next amazon, but isn't that getting a bit old? I suggest he face the village champion of..."

* * *

><p>Ranma stared at the small, grey plastic objects in his hands, disbelief obvious in his eyes. "Defeate the village video-game champion?" he he asked doubtfully. "Is this *really* one of the trials of the amazons?"<p>

The elder who had made the suggestion coughed nervously. "Well, you know, just because we're old amazon women doesn't mean we have to be stuck in the past, boy."

The one behind her nodded firmly. "Yeah, only that old hag Cologne keeps insisting on that."

A third elder smiled warmly. "Now that she's out of here, we can *finally* enjoy the benefits of modern civilization."

"Yeah!" the elder in the Dragonball t-shirt piped in, nodding eagerly. "Like these wonderful japanese cartoons..."

After she had been firmly beaten into the ground and told to keep her mouth shut in the future, focus returned to Ranma, and the young girl on the chair next to him, who briefly turned to flash him a winning smile, her foots tapping against the floor impatiently as they waited for the "Loading"-message on the TV in front of the pair to disappear.

* * *

><p>Just like the rest of the crowd, Akane stared big-eyed at her fiancee and the action going on, not quite sure what to make of it. She scratched the back of her head, unsure of whether she should be proud or ashamed.<p>

The pig-tailed young man in question leaned back and forth, never sitting still in his seat, as he waved the controller in all directions, the sweat dripping from his hands making him come close to slipping and dropping the grey piece of plastic to the floor several times.

"Hey, what's that?" he shouted in panic as something new appeared on the TV-set, pushing the buttons franatically. "What do I do to it?"

Beside him, the girl sighed tiredly for the umpteenth time. Obviously, the boy had hardly even *seen* a game like this before, and with the way he kept doing things semi-radomly, she should've had an easy time winning - except for the well-known phenomenon known as "beginners luck".

A loud fanfare sounded, signally that thanks to said phenomenon, the japanese boy now stared at the ending credits, jumping about in his seat as he tried to get somebody to answer him on how to deal with *that*.

Finally, she just couldn't take it anymore, and rose, standing on top of the chair so she could shout right into Ranma's nervous, sweat-covered face. "IT'S OVER, OK?" she screamed, a tinge of sadness already creeping into her voice. "You beat me, it's over, you've won. Nobody's even defeated me in this game before, and now you... y- you..."

She stuttered, trying to hold her tears back, but in the end, the dam burst, and she left the building, wailing incoherent as she ran.

Ranma stared at her retreating form, scratching the back of his head embarassedly.

* * *

><p>"So, boy," one of the elders started, eyeing him disdainfully, "it seems you somehow passed the second trial as well."<p>

"Don't think it's over, though!" the one sitting next to her piped in, noticing Ranma's smile. "There's plenty of challenge left, so don't start celebrating just yet, young one."

"Don't interrupt me!" the first elder hissed under her breath, hitting the second one over the head with her cane. She turned back to the boy. "Well, anyway, for the third trial, just must climb to the top of the village pole, and..."

"Village pole?" the elder on the opposite side interrupted, somewhat predictably. "Are you sure he's not supposed to climb the..." She trailed off, noting the collective stares placed on her, and waved her hands in front of her face in defense. "OK, OK, maybe not!"

"*Anyway*," the original speaker began again, an angry glare daring the others to interrupt as she spoke with a tone somewhat harsher than would perhaps have been necessary, "after you get to the top of the pole, you must stand there, one on leg, for a full twenty-four hours."

"Twenty-four hours?" Ranma protested loudly. "Without moving?"

One of the women grinned. "Without moving? Oh, you're free to move your arms about as much as you wish."

The boy sighed, folding his arms. "Let's get on with it, then," he declared resolutely.

* * *

><p>The thee girls' first reaction when they awoke to find themselves bound, gagged and stared at (but thankfully not naked) was to shake and bend their limbs wildly, trying - to no avail - to get out of their bonds... but soon, they stopped their initial attempts to escape and just stared big-eyed at their captors.<p>

A large crowd had gathered in the large but dimly lit room, gazing at the trio with angry eyes from their seats in the other end of the hall, their apparent leader giving the girls an especially stern gaze from behind the desk at the front at which he sat, arms folded across his chest.

The reason for their surprise was his choice of clothing; like each and every other person in the room, the leader wore a blue skirt over a white shirt. The outfit - which bore a striking resemblance to the female uniform at Furinkan High - would have been rather cute, had it been worn by a young girl, rather than, as in this case, a middle-aged Chinese man, a short goatee and a long moustasche hanging down from his face.

Obviously noticing that the prisoners had regained consciousness, he cleared his throat to catch their attention. "So, here you are, the villains we have heard so much of."

The thee girls just kept staring mutely at the man, now even more confused, and he gave off a cackling laugh, making them doubt his mental health even further. "My nephew is an exchange student at your Furinkan. It from him we first learned of the goddess Akane Tendo, and in his letters we have heard much of you three." He shot them an angry glare. "Of course, with you asking around without even realizing you could not speak the language, like the stupid infidels you are, our agents took notice that you were in China, no doubt trying to wreak evil upon our goddess."

The man grinned confidently. "Well, we'll have none of that. Now, confess!"

Behind him, the crowd whispered amongst themselves, clearly quite agitated against the supposedly villanous trio.

As soon as they felt the gags be ripped away, the girls started protesting, all speaking at the same time. "Akane is villain!" "Yeah, she the one that kidnapped my Ranma!" "No, *my* Ranma!" "We just trying to get husband back from no-good violent girl!" "Whaddaya mean 'husband', you bimbo?"

Before long, their lights went out again.

* * *

><p>Ranma smiled to himself, surrounded on all sides by the black, silent night that assaulted him where he stood unmoving on top of the pole. He would, of course, have preferred just to get it all over with, but on the other hand, he found *this* test rather relaxing - he'd never been given much room for peace and quiet, and while he couldn't stand any large doses of it, he certainly appreciated the opportunity for a little respite.<p>

As it was, this trial really wouldn't be much of a problem, expect possibly if he fell asleep; luckily, the wind had stopped, and the otherwise easily swayed pole stayed still.

As the boy pondered his recent stroke of luck - something he'd usually didn't have in any noticeable quantity - he could hear the sound of flesh impacting with wood; something crashed into the bottom of the pole, making it shake all the way to the top, and Ranma had to use every bit of balance he possessed to keep from falling.

He peered down below, suspecting cheating on the part of the amazons, but, at first, did not see anything there. Then, as he looked more closely, he could just barely distinguish a small, round, black shape from the darkness that surrounded it - a shape that could only be P-chan.

The bweeing noise as the pig threw itself at the pole again proved him right, and as Ranma struggled to hang on, he wondered just how ol' pig-boy had managed to show up *here* of all places. And did it mean that others were nearby? That the plan to get away and search alone hadn't worked quite as well as he had hoped?

Unfortunately, Akane currently slept soundly in the bed that had been provided for her - he could almost hear her snores all this way -so he couldn't count on her to take care of the accursed pest.

As these thoughts and others flew through his head, the boy noticed more movement on the ground below, the sound of hurried footsteps muffled by the grass as a human figure emerged from the nearby trees.

The figure stopped by Ryouga, picking him up just as the pig was about to launch itself at the pole again. Ranma looked closely and noticed to his surprised that the figure was a short, long-haired girl, possibly of Japanese origin, and certainly not dressed for a journey through the wilderness. "I don't believe you managed to get away again, little piggie," he heard her whisper admonishingly as she held the pig in front of her face. "Don't you realize it's dangerous out here alone? You could've hurt yourself, and you put darling Ranma in danger, too! Come on, let's get out of here now."

Holding the animal pressed tight against her chest, Akari turned to walk away ... then briefly looked up, her eyes meeting Ranma's confused stare for a fraction of a second before she ran away, disappearing just as quickly as she had come.

Had the boy not been occupied by keeping his balance, he would've scratched the back of his head in surprise. He wondered just who on earth *this* girl was, and what she was doing here... and he could've sworn he'd noticed a slight blush on her face.

* * *

><p>When the girls next awoke, they found their bonds were gone, but unfortunately, the cold, dank cell in which they had been placed left them very little room to make use of that fact. Thankfully, they had all been left in their normal clothes, and relatively uninjured, but that did not provide much comfort considering the circumstances.<p>

From beyond the iron bars that blocked the exit - thouroughly rusty, but still looking quite sturdy - the leader, still clad in the dress and shirt, smiled grimly at them, holding up a lantern to provide some light. "So, you won't speak, will you?" he grunted. "Then you will rot in here until you change your minds!"

And with that, he turned on his heels and walked away, his hard footsteps echoing against the stone walls as he left the three girls alone in the darkness to ponder their situation.

* * *

><p>"So," Ranma told the somewhat worried-looking elders, beaming slightly. "I'm finished with your trials, now can you help me?"<p>

The old women turned to discuss with each other, whispering for a while, then gradually increasing in volume as they became more and more agitated. Finally, just before their tones would've grown loud enough for the two japanese to discern (had they known Chinese), the elders turned back to face them again, all smiling sweetly.

"Oh," one of them said, "but who said that was the last trial?"

"Yeah," one of her collegous agreed. "For the next trial, you'll have to fix my leaking roof."

"And wash my dirty laundry," another piped in.

"And paint my walls."

"And patch my outhouse."

"And..."

Hands on his hips, Ranma and Akane gave the group of women a hard, unrelenting stare.

"Okay, okay," the lead elder relented, waving her hands in defense. "You *are* done. There's, umm, a bit of a problem, though. " A sweatdrop formed on her forehead.

The pig-tailed boy sighed. "What wrong?" he asked tiredly.

"We keep a few bottles of water from the spring of drowned boy around, just in case," the elder explained. "However, just a few weeks ago, something happened; one morning, they had all been broken, and we could find no signs of whomever did it."

"Exactly," one of the others joined in. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather be a full-time woman? We still have some of that water."

Ranma scratched the back off his head. "Err, I rather not. But, maybe you can help Akane?"

The girl nodded vigorously. "I've got a boy curse," she told them with a considerable amount of shame in her voice, "so I'll need some of that girl water."

"Sorry," the elders told her, somewhat apologetically. "No can do. You'd have to go through the trails first, too."

"Well, then," she snarled angrily, "I'll..."

Ranma interrupted the girl by putting a restraining hand on her shoulder. "Akane, trust me, there's *no* way you'd beat that champion, and I mean it." He cut off her protest with a firm shake of his head, then turned back to the elders, eyes narrowing in irritation. "So, you're saying I went through all that crap ... for *nothing*?"

"Actually," one of the elders told him, smiling embarrassedly, "yes, we are."

The woman standing next to her scratched her chin, nodding thoughtfully to herself. "Well, we *might* have something that could help you among the Ancient Amazon Treasures." One could almost hear her pronounce the capital letters.

"Yes, now that you mention it," another elder agreed, similarly sunken in thought. "We'll have to go look."

* * *

><p>Ranma looked on with a mixture of awe, shock and confusion as the seven elders collectively digged through the large, dusty room full of various strange, old-looking items of all sorts, more often than not getting in each other's way.<p>

Suddenly, something came flying at him, and he barely had time to raise his arm in time to catch the wooden staff before it crashed into his scull. "Nyoibo," the tossing elder commented before she returned to her searching. "Magical, and it can grow larger on command... but I guess that's no help. Hm."

A few moments later, the boy had to duck, as a sharp pointed object, vaguely knife-like, came flying at him, and got stuck in the wall only a few inches from where his head had been. "That's the Ensui," one of the elders told him. "Got it from one of your Japanese ninja clans some four hundred years ago. It has special powers over the element of water... hm... No, could be useful, but I guess it's not really the solution we were looking for."

In the far corner of the room, an elder gave off a short, joyful shout, holding up some round metal object with obvious glee. "Found it!" she exclaimed, grinning. "The plate of true... no," She tossed it back where she'd found it, dejected. "That won't do it, either."

Time passed, and the eyes of the two japanese grew larger and larger as the old women came up with one weird item after another, none of them any good, and finally, the elders reconvened before them. "Sorry," their leader said apologetically, bowing her head. "It seems we don't have anything that can help."

"That's strange," one of the others commented, scratching her chin. "I was so sure we had *something* for situations like this."

"Oh, right!" another exclaimed, holding up her index finger as she realized something. "We sold some of the things off to that museum some fifty years ago." She turned to one of her collegues. "Remember, Elder Li, that was when you gambled away all our..."

The woman who had been spoken to hit the accusing one over the head with her cane, hard. "You don't have to tell *them* that," she hissed, glancing at the japanese pair.

"Um, right," Ranma interrupted loudly, wanting to get an answer before the elders started fighting amongst each other again. "So where is this museum?"

* * *

><p>"I grow weary of this deception, Elders."<p>

"As do we all, Elder. But remember, it is still necessary. The world must continue to believe we are but a small, backwards village, run by a bunch of cackling old women."

"True, Elder, but what difference will the words of one young japanese upstart make to the entire world?"

"Maybe not much, Elder, but it all adds up, and considering how long we've been working on this, we must be as careful as possible."

"Indeed, Elder. We cannot let anything spoil our plans now that we're so close."

"I'm sorry. You are right, of course, Elder."

"Yes. As soon as the international feminist conspiracy has gained enough strength, the world shall once again know the wrath of the amazons!"

In unison, the elders all laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and a cosmic observer felt a large drop of sweat collect on the back of his head.

* * *

><p>Sighing defeatedly, Ukyou sank down onto the thin mattress that was the only piece of furniture in the dark cell. "It's no use," she told the others, who were still madly trying to shake or bend the bars, with no heat or conviction in her voice.<p>

Though it was hard to really tell in this darkness, despite the seeming eternity during which they eyes had adjusted, she noticed them stopping their efforts to turn towards her. "Guess spatula girl is right," Shampoo reluctantly agreed after a while. "We been trying long now, but bars will not bend." And been trying they head - the numerous bumps that adorned the Amazon girl's normally rather hard head proved that.

Kodachi snorted, shaking her head. "This dark, smelly place is truly unfit for a person of my standing." She folded her arms across her chest, and they guessed that she stared at them down the length of her nose, but the fact that all they could see of each other were vague outlines lessened the effect somewhat. "It is, of course, your fault," she added, sneering.

"Our fault?" Her fuse shortened by the dismal surroundings, Ukyou could feel her anger rising, almost thankful for the opportunity to vent some frustrations, and she crackled her knuckles, noting that Shampoo did the same.

"Yes, your fault," Kodachi answer haughtily, not taking notice of - or not caring about - the other girls' irritation. "Had you two stupid peasants not acted so rashly, we would never have ended up like this. I will, however, be satisfied if you kneel and apologize properly." She giggled with false friendliness. "Normally, I would of course demand your heads."

"Why, you!" Ukyou retorted, her face burning, and she waved her clenched fist threateningly towards the oblivious girl.

Just as Shampoo was about to pipe in, a soft, clicking noise distracted the girls, and they turned about to see the outline of the cell door glide open with a creaking sounds, a vaguely female figure standing outside it.

"Now, now, girls," Nodoka whispered admonishingly. "We don't have time to argue. Let's get out of here before they notice."

The girls stared silently in her direction for a while, stretching out their hands to point at her, then when the immediate surprise had gone by, they spoke out their confusion. "Y-you?" the three all uttered in unison. "How'd you get in here?"

The woman flashed them a demure smile, her white teeth making a sharp contrast against the surrounding darkness. "That's a secret."

* * *

><p>The museum guide scratched the back of his head as he adjusted the sleeves of his traditional maoist outfit with his other hand. This was certainly the most unusual couple that had passed through in a long time. Usually, he prided himself on being able to tell almost directly why people came, and concentrate on what interested them, but these? No idea; he'd been forced to go with the standard tour, hoping it wouldn't bore the customers.<p>

It was hard to decide which was the oddest one of them; the short, pigtailed girl, whose language and behaviour were both a bit on the tomboyish side (especially when combined with those clothes), or the tall boy, who seemed just a little bit too feminine for the guide to be comfortable. At any rate, they certainly constitued a fine match. But *Japanese*? What interest could *they* have in this museum?

The guide shrugged. On with the rest of the tour. "And here, honorable customers," he said in his most grand and venerable voice, "you see an AK-47 assault rifle once used by a Soviet brother to kill more than fifteen capitalist pigs, before they could finally take him down." The guide sniffed, faking a tear. "If you look closely, you can see the markings on the barrel that..."

Ranma yawned. "Look," he said, the sarcasm obvious in the boy's voice (he'd never been one for subtlety), "all this communist junk sure is interesting, but we were looking for some old amazon stuff that we'd heard you had."

"Amazon?" That stopped the guide in his tracks, and he had to pause for a second to gather his wits. He'd almost forgotten about that by now - but with such odd visitors, of course they'd been interested in something odd. "I'm sorry, honorable customer, but we no longer have it here."

Akane, rather tired of the whole mess by now, reached out to grab the short, pudgy man by his collar. "Look, just tell us where they are already. I've had enough of this curse." Behind her (currently rather masculine) back, Ranma smirked.

The guide sweated, forcing a smile. "Curse? Ha ha," he laughed politely. "Honorable mister customer is very funny, almost like my cousin who works at Jusenkyou, he always insists those stupid curses really exist." Seeing that this didn't work to dimnish the feminine but certainly powerful boy's anger any, he hasted on with the explanation. "Anyway, as I said, those items are no longer here. We traded them with a Russian museum many years ago to get these fine party relics you see here."

Behind them, Ranma sighed. "Just tell us where that museum is and we'll get going," he told the man wearily.

* * *

><p><em>This is everything the author published on the story, unless he decides to continue it one day, we'll never know what happens in Russia.<em>


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